A Case of You
by Sprouty
Summary: Grace/Dimitri. A student, a teacher,and a lesson they will never forget.
1. The Real Truth

A case of you, by Sprouty.  
  
  
  
  
disclaimer: a story inspired by the television series Once and Again (thank you writers, creators, actors and all). A new story or just the retelling of an old one, from a different pov. "Rashomon!" , feedback please. And although the beginning starts with a story arc parellel to the show, it doesn't quite follow "the official" story arc later on...umm.   
  
  
"In the blue TV screen light  
I drew a map of Canada  
Oh Canada-ahh  
And your face sketched on it twice  
oh you're in my blood like holy wine  
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet  
Oh I could drink a case of you  
I could drink a case of you darling  
And I would still be on my feet  
Oh I would still be on my feet  
  
Oh I am a lonely painter  
I live in a box of paints  
I'm frightened by the devil  
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid  
I remember that time that you told me, you said  
"Love is touching souls"  
Surely you touched mine  
"Cause part of you pours out of me  
In these lines from time to time", Joni Mitchell  
  
  
  
  
  
  
THE REAL TRUTH  
  
  
  
  
I think back to the beginning from time to time and I wonder when the real beginning was. Was it the almost-kiss? Because in a way that kiss closed something in my life that although it had a right to be, it had no place for existence in reality, and maybe I was relieved to find I didn't want the kiss maybe as much as I thought I needed it. That near kiss was a turning point, it made me see what it was I did want. And maybe it wasn't what I thought it would be. The time at the wedding reception, our parents wedding reception, when Eli and I-- , but then I question that possibly it was much earlier than that where our story began. The preamble to our story. Maybe it started that summer with Jared at writing camp. When I learned to fly, and fall. Or was something always leading up to this, our ending. Our beginning. August has told his story in the printed medium, but we haven't reached that point yet and I want, I want to tell him mine. So this is an attempt. To be honest. To reach across the silent barrier we put up and tell the truth. My mother, she asked me what it was that happened exactly the night before the meeting with the school board. With tears in her eyes she asked for the truth, the truth of my junior year and I couldn't answer her then. Because maybe as much as I didn't want it to show, I was still scared. I was protecting him, or so I thought and maybe that was wrong. I didn't want her to know everything because everything was wrong and I knew it. A still raw gapping wound when she asked, was there anyway that would not seem vulgur and crase to explain such a story? To someone who possibly would never understand. I was scared there wouldn't ever be. At all costs I could not let her know that I was scared. She needed to know I was okay, that was what she really needed to know. But now it's so far in the past, like that Alanis Morisette song- "under rug swept", that I want to write it down and have some record. Because I never want to forget. I never want to forget my Mr.Dimitri. So my mind brings back the things that happened as if I were watching a teleplay and I narrate.   
  
  
  
I was just so tired. It was just one of those days when you fight to keep your eyes open in the class as the teacher drones on. I'm sure Eli's car wrecking, Mom's asking for help with her resume, Judy over,like all hours, (actually a semi-bright spot) and Dad's calls to reassure us he was not about to forget us for some new baby (although he never pointedly said this..I infer it ) didn't help, but basically I was just tired. Not a crime. "Well. I got through your journals." Mr.Dimitri turned as he spoke with a stack of books in his arms, he started to pass them out clockwise round the room. I yawned. There was no alterior motive in this! But it happened as I pulled my hand away I caught his eyes on me. I didn't think he would say anything. I thought wrong. He started to smile, that bemused unreadable smile of his I'd seen before. I thought he was going to be nice. He handed me my book and, "But--enough about me. How did you feel? About the experience."   
  
Did he mean me? He was looking at me and smiling. I don't think Mr.Dimitri had ever stood before me, me directly, and looked. If he did I never noticed. Earlier in the day I had been wondering if he would be impressed with what I had written. I thought my journal entries were quite good, interesting, well balanced. I looked together on paper. He was smiling so --  
  
  
"Me?". He waited. Which is something I would come to admire, well sometimes. It was only a brief second lapse, but I thought he was cute. That's the word I thought. I was enjoying this attention. "Well I've kept journals before, so--", (I think I even smiled back at him). Ha.   
  
  
"Oh you have?" I was slightly confused I mean just how long had he been teaching Creative Writing? They make you write ridiculous journals (not the real kind, the kind I wrote and kept, tucked away ) from practically freshman year on, at some point, in some class. And if he had read My Journal he would have read about my writing camps. Not that it really impressed anyone at all, but I had written in ink right there in the journal.   
  
  
"Yes off and on", I answered, but I was talking to the back of his jacket --now and he was moving on. Or so I thought. I never really did know where I stood with Mr.Dimitri. He was handing out another journal and I thought that he was through with me.  
  
  
"So--what d'ya think, what's that like?" Did he still mean me? I was watching him and as I caught his profile bending to hand another journal back I saw he was still smiling. He was a fairly interesting teacher. He was different. I wanted to talk with him. I never thought about wanting to talk with him until I was.  
  
  
"It's --fine. It's nice". He stopped, frozen in place. I saw right away I had clearly said something wrong. I didn't realize the what. why? why not? but his sudden stop implied an error of judgement on my part. And I was slightly scared of him. I blinked, for lack of a better nervous twitch. Why was it so quiet. Why was it a darked, rainy day outside and the classroom so dull. Why did I say that? Oh my God, what if I had not said it.   
  
  
"I'm sorry. I thought you said "nice."   
  
  
Mr.Dimitri spun around to look at me. I was starting to not like that so much. He was upset with me. And it couldn't just be about the nice. I assumed he was just a hard ass , and we had read him wrong. Just wanting this unexpected interaction to be over, "I said nice".  
  
  
I hadn't meant it to sound that way when I started to say it. It just came out more challenging, colder, emphasized then I intended. It wasn't what I meant at all. I just wanted to forget this whole discussion, and fool I was then -I thought I would. Like, as soon as I was out in the hall. At my locker.  
  
  
"I don't want to misquote you, or anything--". Now that was not nice. The smile I had thought to be in kindness was hiding an obvious sarcasism. He didn't care what I was saying, he was just looking for someone to attack, obviously something was bothering him completely unrelated to us his class, and I was it. The victim. Today's sacrifice. Before I thought what I was doing I had snapped back, "I said nice." I was just so tired.  
  
  
But I wanted to talk back to him! I wanted to be in trouble. I wanted something to happen. Maybe I wanted to wake up. Eli had a DUI, Jessie had anorexia-- I never really had anything of my own before. Rebellion in Creative Writing class it was. But I never planned any of it, and I never thought in the split second it took for me to answer him any of these things. It was automatic. Over the summer I had changed. I had learned to argue with those older and presumably wiser than me (my parents, Rick.. ) trying to futily save the one thing they could not take, my opinion. But I had never voiced any anger to another adult before outside my family, not like this. In public. In the quiet of a classroom. Then again, I guess maybe I expected him to not even hear my rejoinder. I didn't know he would listen to me.  
  
  
"Nice." Oh I hated this voice and his suddenly too large eyes. And his cruel smile. I hated August Dimitri. He could have let me be. He had to turn that voice on me. "Let's see. Whatever shall I do today. I know; I shall write in my boring old journal, and it will be ever so nice."   
  
As soon as he had sat and put his stupid theatrical hands to his face- didn't he realize how weird that looked?, the class had start reacting to him. So I guess he won. I guess I helped him win. The class was laughing and I was mortified. So I smiled, a fraudulent smile. Like it was okay that he used me. But then as he walked away and turned suddenly he looked serious, and sat on the edge of his desk.  
  
  
"Nice is for shrimp salads, and grandmothers. I'm not interested in nice", the ending more gentle. Strong, forceful yet gentle.  
  
  
And neither was I. I smiled a little longer, until the focus was off me. Until I thought about it, and him all through my next class. It bothered me the way he had looked right at me when he said "boring". Obviously he wasn't worth giving the time of day if he didn't like my thoughts, my journal or at least have any respect for them. But he was a good teacher. I had liked him right away, right from his introduction of himself. His class was my favorite of the course load so far. I hadn't looked at his notes on my weeks journal entries. To have him catch me looking in class, it would have been unbearable. No doubt he would have had a smart comment to make. I had pushed the book under my binder. But later in the class as he talked from this desk I noticed him once quickly covertly not aware the observation, look at me. He almost looked sorry. Sorry that he singled me out. But even in that moment of annoyance with him I was not sorry that he had done any of the things he did. And I was almost looking forward to the next day. And I didn't plan on discussing him at home that night. Home? I never expected him to enter my home. That place away from things scholastic. Or that he would enter in all the doors I thought were closed , at least for him. 


	2. On Awful

ON AWFUL  
  
  
  
  
  
  
After school, I sat down on my bed bookbag beside me for a moment. Mr.Dimitri was just so presumptuous. I pushed my bag off onto the floor letting it slump down. What right did he have to think he knew me at all. A teacher was supposed to be supportive of students efforts. How did he know I wasn't the kind who would be hurt by things like biting comments, humiliation in class? Why did he not care if he hurt me. Cause he sure didn't seem to care. I had written exactly what he asked. He said he wanted us to tell things exactly as they happened. He had said he didn't want a story, that he wanted only simple accounts. Sketchs of our lives. Well I quoted things said to me, I punctuated things with witty asides -for his benefit not mine!, I shared a part of my life. And he had the nerve to write that it was not good enough. That he was not satisfied with what I was showing. That possibly I wasn't being honest. What had the other students written that made my journal pale in comparison? I couldn't possibly imagine what Dan who sat next to me could have that I didn't. Maybe I shouldn't have ever mentioned my interest in writing. Obviously it seemed to him I was trying to be something I clearly wasn't, or worse he thought I was showing off. The way you see someone who thinks they are really good get up and embarass themselves endlessly until you want to slap them or walk away disgusted. I didn't want to speak with him again, not after reading his "note" and mark. Not so much dislike, it was more that I knew he was no doubt a good writer. He's been to college. He had a degree. He had an education. And I didn't have any of these things yet. But I always thought I was smarter than everyone else and sometimes that has gotten me places. It was getting me places here too but not where I anticipated. During the last ten minutes of class Mr.Dimitri had us take up our journals, write that days entry and of course leave them with him. He said it would be better that way, "More spontaneous." Like that was a good thing. I wrote my entry the way I'd written all the others, I couldn't let him know right away that what I had seen on the page before the latest entry in his scratchy handwriting had ruffled me. I would let him think it was like water on feathers. Sliding right off this chickens back. But I also realized I wanted this particular person to be impressed with me, and that maybe to do that I was going to have to do exactly what he wanted. But I wouldn't let him know that, exactly. He would see I was made of metal and that maybe he had underestimated me. That's what I decided in that moment anyway. During dinner somewhere between passing the margarine and Jessie's comments on how different this year was going to be from last year Mom asked about grades. Jessie's of course not mine. She asked what Jessie was thinking in terms of higher education and for what she would like to do. Mom wouldn't ask me because it was already set my plan. College. Degree. Degrees. With Honors. A career of some respectability in whatever field I'd feel "passionate" about. Well that would sure would not go the way anyone thought. But it did, the dinner discussion anyway, make me think of Mr.Dimitri. An awesome grade in his class was going to be tough and any student who got one would definitely make an impression on him. I wanted to make an impression. Oh the sweet ignorance. Logically I thought that meant I would need every mark I could get in creative writing and these journals, that I thought were givens and evidently weren't, would have to be reconciled. I resolved during dinner that I would just go and ask him what I could do to improve. I mean teachers always offer to answer any questions you may have right. I helped clear the dishes and went up to my room to do a page and a half of physics stuff , then came back down later than I thought I would be when I started the physics. Jessie and Zoe were eating something and Eli had the remote.   
  
  
"Hey. So what are we watching?". Jessie pushed over next to Eli leaving a space for me to sit at the end of the sofa. "Godzilla takes..someone".   
  
  
"Great two things I hate. Monsters and black and white Japanese films". Really I didn't mind either one, but I was trying to make conversation.   
  
  
It was sort of okay to have lots of people around, doing all these different things. When it was just Zoe and I the age difference really stood out. The things she wanted to do were rarely the things I wanted for myself. The myself I wanted to be. That cool hipster person. Yeah right. But having Jessie and Eli around in a way made things just so normal. And I didn't resent them as much as I expected to. In fact it was just so much easier to be normal with them. To see myself as normal. Eli was one of the popular people when I went to school with him, back when I even had a crush on him. It was an extreme confidence booster this summer to see he thought that I was pretty okay too. And it wasn't that I was still ,in love, with him because it was more embarassment than anything else I had now whenever I thought about a possible Eli/me romance. It was just, not even something I could picture anymore. It really was embarassing because I was sort of sure he knew about it. It was so over. I wanted it to be over at least. But Eli was still cool, he still did all the neat things I wished in part I could be a part of , yes encompassing the drugs, the parties , the relationships. I was just really ready to start living. Eli was a part of that. He knew a lot of the people I still went to school with. We had like, acquaintances in common. So when he asked about school I totally fell into talking about it with him. And who really wanted to watch Godzilla anyway. All the little towns people averting their eyes in horror as the misunderstood monster carried off the girl. Then I found I was thinking of Mr.Dimitri again and his weird orange hair. I started to wonder if maybe he did drugs. That would be pretty cool for a teacher, sort of. And he looked like the type that maybe. This was all before I knew him very well. I wanted to try his name out. Outloud so (I didn't mean to smile here),  
  
  
"I hate my creative writing teacher."   
  
  
Eli didn't turn but answered, "Oh yeah?" Yah! Acknowledgement of me talking. Me. "He publicly humiliates me." I didn't think I needed to add that maybe I had provoked him just a little. Besides who would ever believe that. Now Eli had looked over. He probably wonders what I term public humiliation and is thinking not much.  
  
  
"I do that, you don't hate me." He's right I didn't. Even when he really did humiliate me. In school, with Carla. I just was more disappointed with him than anything in those times. So why did I hate Dimitri. I guess he was just a safe person to hate. Until he wasn't safe anymore.  
  
  
"Yeah I do." Like right this instant, I sort of am tired of all the stupid teenage mentality comments. I threw a piece of popcorn at him. I could tell Jessie was getting annoyed with us, no I should say with me because she usually had this attitude when it came to me. Jessie started turning up the volume on the tv. Like anyone was really watching the movie to hear the lines. Before I could stop myself , I tried a first name out.  
  
  
"Plus his name is August, which is just--" . Eli interupted me now. "That's not a name, that's a month!"  
  
  
"Exactly!". My point exactly. It really was a really odd teacher that had fallen into my class. My life. I needed sympathy from someone, anyone. Someone to help assess the very weirdness of all that was this teacher with me. "And he acts like he's the only person in the whole world who knows anything."   
  
  
"That's how you act."  
  
  
That was weird. I mean I knew I always felt smarter than everyone else in my mind. But I thought I was really a pushover, very kind, benevolent, yes I thought I was --nice. "Shut Up!"   
  
  
God, this was silly. What did I care what anyone thought. Eli was totally making fun of me. I reached over to slap at him. Because that's what you do when you are having fun, flirting in a perfectly harmless fashion with a good looking guy who is not related to you (by clinical blood ties), but still a permanent part of your life in a really safe neat way. All I had ever thought about Eli was how cool it would be to be with him. Not physically, emotionally - none of that really. Friends was perfect. Jessie started wiggling and for a second I though she was going to help me slap him too. That would have been okay, but she didn't instead she took it all the wrong way.  
  
  
"Okay, let's go." Jessie was looking at Zoe impatiently and I was just really confused for a second. Until I realized what she was thinking. Embarassment, and a desire to make things right soon followed. Zoe was actually watching the movie."What?".   
  
  
"They obviously want to be alone!" I was shocked Jessie actually said that. I never knew she had a backbone, and I was silently pissed that she would even think that. And that she was ordering around my sister who I now didn't want to leave the room at any cost. I mean, Zoe was enjoying the movie. Why should she leave and if she did that left me there with Eli after Jessie's impossible to miss outburst. It was too embarassing, happening way to fast and I don't think I even thought a thing except. Oh no. No. Eli must have felt this too because right away he sprung up, "Whaat?!"  
  
  
Freaked out I piped in, "No we don't." Really I didn't. I was all a gigantic misunderstanding. Oh Zoe stay. But Zoe seemed confused, but also because she's smarter than I really like to think at times said, "No they don't". At least someone understood.   
  
  
"Hey. Jess--we don't--" Eli was saying. It just came sputtering out of me , "We don't want to be alone!" But Jessie was stomping off out of the livingroom and Zoe got up hurrying after her. Zoe idealizes Jessie. Or at least I think she admires a lot of her qualities. Who can blame her. I mean it''s not like she'd ever want to be like me. At all. I caught Eli's eye.  
  
  
"I have to---"  
  
  
"Yeah--"  
  
  
"--write in my journal, and--". Yes that was it. My journal. Even though I didn't have it. Mr.Dimitri had kept it at school. And right when I really needed a journal. Dimitri would love this. Or would he? My embarassed side.  
  
  
"Me too. I mean--" Holy shit. Was Eli that thrown he was slipping, or thinking of writing in a journal. That was laughable. Oh, no I know what he meant. It was just really vital to get out of there before Jessie thought her thoughts that we wanted to be alone, and she thought alone meant only one thing, were true. Right behind Eli, moving in the opposite direction I quipped. "No, I know." 


	3. Fall

Author's note: Special thanks to all those comments made to me, by a variety of sources, that have found there way into being incorporated into this chapter. Like I read someplace about someone saying they were called a "culture whore". I sort of get that feeling about myself. I take things that don't belong to me, go through people's private things and ponder people's more embarrassing works. Haha. That's the awful truth. You know, really I could be on this first "chapter" of the G/D story forever because telling a story is sometimes an involved process. Wish me luck. Oh and reviews please!!!   
  
"discover me discovering you  
...  
take all your big plans and break them  
this is bound to be a while  
your body is wonderland  
your body is wonder-- I'll lose my head  
your body is wonderland  
There's something about the way the hair falls in your face  
..."  
John Mayer "Your Body is Wonderland"  
FALL  
  
The next day I just decided why not? It wasn't like Dimitri was God or whatever name you give the untouchable unspeakable something that you believe in. He was real. Even if remotely so. Mr. Dimitri was just this guy with feelings like anyone else and therefore was probably chanelling feelings of inadequacy in this classroom persona he had. I mean, probably. I hoped anyway because a happy, infallible Dimitri I was not sure I could approach. But regardless I was ready to be ready to tackle him whatever the outcome. I sort of liked him and the initial flurry of frustration with him from yesterday was passing. I thought about his freckled face on the way to school, Rick driving, as I looked out the window. Really I didn't think Mr. Dimitri was very happy himself and for all the show he put on I seriously wondered are any of us happy. Even the seemingly happy people. But you know what, he would teach me that yes happiness does exist. Because it would exist when I was with him. I would feel that I was home. And I would be happy even when it hurt. But somehow even back in September I got the impression he was not that inhuman, even if he seemed that way to some people. He wasn't that untouchable but I think it kept him safe to look that way. I wanted him safe, so even now I won't disillusion people. But maybe it made him lonely at times too.   
  
I was invited to the movies that morning! I was looking forward to going with Eli, even if Jessie had to come..but and this is really the thing that floored me. During class I spent a few moments picturing (I refuse to use the word daydream--no!) about seeing the film with Mr.Dimitri or running into him in the theater and asking his opinion. I mean, "Muskateers" are literary figures. Because after just a few weeks of school, I was starting to be cognizant I suppose of really now little Eli had to say. Drugs or not. Cause I still had suspicions about Mr. Dimitri in that area too.   
  
So I took notes on the subject matter and covertly watched Mr. Dimitri in class that day. Now, I don't know if he noticed me noticing him. At different times I would look down at my page and try to look thoughtful. Thus giving him ample opportunity right, to notice the interesting expression my face would take in thought and maybe, maybe notice me. It was crazy maybe, but something about him made me want his attention. He had everyone elses undivided attention so it was only fair that he have something to notice himself. I couldn't help myself from looking up occasionally to notice if he noticed me.   
  
Sometimes I felt stupid because I was just extremely plain and why would he notice someone like that. Sometimes I thought just maybe he had. But I was sitting far enough away that I couldn't quite read his expressions with any real definition. He was sitting behind his desk mostly today. Class let out and he didn't seem to be going anywhere so I waited until enough people had left and then went over.   
  
Mr. Dimitri looked at me then. He didn't have much choice. But like I was a person equal to him he told me something interesting. He explained why he reacted to the word nice.   
  
I had smiled at him, not wanting to have another useless waste of -- connection? Anyway, the day before had been wasted in a small way I thought but really it wasn't like we had any control over each other. Then.   
  
He said, "Grace."   
  
And then he waited for me to speak. It really is unnerving when he does that. Just looks at you. The term piercing blue eyes is not a joke. These eyes pierce you. They pierced me. Like getting an earring piercing I suppose, it just takes a second and then your good to go on, but for a milosecond you flinch. I flinched. I like to have my conversations with people's ears, hair, neck, hands. I avoid the eyes. Or I'll roll mine. Less devastating to see other people looking at you like you're strange, if you just never look at them.  
  
I started , "About yesterday--" but he put up his hand and cut me off. I don't know how he seems to know what your thinking before you complete it but he did. And that was a relief. I hope it wasn't all an illusion.  
  
"Grace, when you read Shakespeare do you ever read the little notations, or clarifications at the bottom of the pages? ", he looked at me more closely.   
  
That was really one of the first moments I'll admit that I was first absolutely left speechless by him. This whole little brief interaction the context of it being so unusual in itself.   
"Well I do. And I remember, recently reading 'Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!' . This play, Henry4 actually-- I mean, my copy anyway --it says that nice implies 'effeminate, delicate, tender'. I guess you just made me think of that. A piece of advice Grace you don't want to confine yourself to nice, you want to be even more than that. I think you are--"  
  
"Mr. Dimitri--"  
  
He blinked for a second like he hadn't realized I was speaking to him or like he wasn't used to anyone voicing anything back to him personally. Like he wasn't used to his own name or something. So I waited, but then encouraging he offered, "Yes".   
  
I was thinking that I wished I had let him continue on with his train on thought. I was about to bring up the journals. There were questions I had and it was, and this shocked me as much as anyone -- it was not unsettling to talk with him. He's interesting in that somehow someway when you're with him he makes you feel interesting too. I liked that and I didn't want to leave his presence. This was weirding me out because he was this "authority" figure. This person you came to listen to, to watch and then you left them behind. You just don't talk with the teachers, like that! But in this particular instance anything further I could have said was cut short when another student came in the room. A senior I sort of vaguely recognized from the hallways.   
  
Mr. Dimitri listened to that person's comments and started to speak with them. I said I would talk to him later and I left actually disappointed. I was a little sore that even though he made some effort to acknowledge the journal thing, he also never indicated any interest in it. Not really. I still didn't know what I was doing wrong or how to correct it or why I even should!   
  
I still didn't know what we would talk about later either but that's what later would be for. Was he worth the wait? Strangely going on nothing but a feeling, I knew --somepart of me, yes ,-- knew he was. He was worth it. Or maybe I did really have more than a feeling if you think about it, you know , that theory of your senses always sending you signs and knowing things through what you are given by sight, sound, touch, etc. He touched me. And when I would leave him at the end of the day.. I would wish him only happiness. Pink carnations. Or maybe pale pink roses.  
  
"If you wait for me  
then I'll come for you  
although I have travelled far  
I always hold a place for you in my heart  
  
If you think of me  
If you miss me one silly while  
then I'll return to you  
I'll return and fill that space in your heart  
  
Remembering   
your touch, your kiss, your warm embrace  
I'll find my way back to you  
if you'll be waiting too"  
  
Tracy Chapman "If you wait" 


End file.
